Anyone use the Endian Firewall distribution?

[swatbat]

I looked in the forums and saw where a couple of people have played around with this but am wondering if anyone has had a chance to really test it out. I'm trying to setup a pretty good router that does dhcp, av, proxy, and most important vpn to 2 or 3 other locations. To make it easy if I find one disto I like all 3 will get the same one acting as the firewall. So far this looks pretty good as far as specs go but wanted to know if anyone has really used it yet.

 

[itsmikey]

Never used Endian, checkout m0n0wall, smoothwall..

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Going on second day of it.

Even though it's built on IPCop..the install routine isn't as easy. IPCop..the install routine detects your network cards...asks you which interface you wish to assign them...and you get to configure those interfaces during this install setup/interrogation..and fire up DHCP on the green interface. Then reboot...next login is your web admin from a workstation plugged into a switch that's linked to the green interface.

With Endian...the install routine only has you configure your green interface..and the install routine does not allow you to choose which NIC that will be. So you're "OK..which do I plug into?" Still not out of the woods..if there's nothing connected to the NICs...they are not activated upon bootup...no DHCP running..so you have to manually assign your rig an IP address. And..auto-detect for some reason acted strange...bottom line..I plugged BOTH NICs into a switch..along with my laptop. Powercycled the Endian box...only then did the NICs light up. I could then log into the web admin from my laptop with a static IP address. Run through the web admin setup...then power down..plug red interface into my Surfboard...and continue setup.

Performance..on par with IPCop. Did a few online tests at Speakeasy..on Comcast PowerBoost I hit 92,700 down. IPCop would occasionally hit over 90,000 also. This was with ClamAV activated on the proxy service.

To sum it up again, what I mentioned in the other thread...Endian seems like the basic IPCop package..combined with the Copfilter add-on ...redesigned in an all new smoother more modern web admin. More polished.

The content filtering seems much more flexible than the one provided in Copfilter. You can really fine tune it. Easy transparent proxy and mail washing also (spam/virus).

In the latest beta-ish 2.0 release..the "help" menu in the web admin is not functional...but the full html help guide is available on their website..probably a good idea to copy that down locally.

All in all..it seems like a much more polished product, aimed towards business use. IPCop was built on top of smoothwall..Endian is built on top of IPCop. Refinement! I'm probably going to keep this Endian hard drive running...retire my IPCop install.

 

[MorfiusX]

Have you looked at what the average disk access is? I have my IPcop booting from compact flash. The reason I haven't added CopFilter to it is I don't want to increase disk access.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

One more note..by default outbound firewall rules are locked down...web traffic out...other things..such as your favorite IM..no-go. With IPCop..everything allowed out until you locked down. So for now I flipped the outbound control off...

RAM usage...IPCop seemed to hover just under 300 megs with Copfilter. Endian..I've been at 202 megs.

Disk access..right off the bat appears much less...IPCop used to crunch the drive now and then, especially when doing anything in the web admin. Endian..except for when I enabled and started proxy services last night..that's the only time I heard the drive crunch..it's been pretty much nothing since then..even in the web admin (which is MUCH faster). Swap usage so far has been zero. Disk Access..so far the average has been 300,350 sectors read/write...I suspect that will go down..because it did a lot around 10pm last night when I was firing up services, and it's been pretty much nothing since then.

 

[swatbat]

Never used Endian, checkout m0n0wall, smoothwall..

m0nowall doesn't have a vpn server. It just will act as an endpoint. I wish it did.

Have you looked at what the average disk access is? I have my IPcop booting from compact flash. The reason I haven't added CopFilter to it is I don't want to increase disk access.

This is something I want to know as well. I'm going to at least start out without the proxy stuff running other then maybe some content filtering as I would like to run it off either compact flash or a ide flash disk. From what I was looking at late last night endian looks like it may be too much for this(unless you get a real big cf card). I'm leaning to ipcop/smoothwall right now. I still think I'm going to have to try endian when I get a chance.

 

[MorfiusX]

This is something I want to know as well. I'm going to at least start out without the proxy stuff running other then maybe some content filtering as I would like to run it off either compact flash or a ide flash disk. From what I was looking at late last night endian looks like it may be too much for this(unless you get a real big cf card). I'm leaning to ipcop/smoothwall right now. I still think I'm going to have to try endian when I get a chance.

Disk access..right off the bat appears much less...IPCop used to crunch the drive now and then, especially when doing anything in the web admin. Endian..except for when I enabled and started proxy services last night..that's the only time I heard the drive crunch..it's been pretty much nothing since then..even in the web admin (which is MUCH faster). Swap usage so far has been zero. Disk Access..so far the average has been 300,350 sectors read/write...I suspect that will go down..because it did a lot around 10pm last night when I was firing up services, and it's been pretty much nothing since then.

...

 

[swatbat]

...

I could have written that better. I keep reading that people recomend a few gigs of storage space for endian. This is part of what I am worried about. I figure most of that would be for cache.

 

[MorfiusX]

I could have written that better. I keep reading that people recomend a few gigs of storage space for endian. This is part of what I am worried about. I figure most of that would be for cache.

The "..." was only there cause I had to put something. I am trying to find out if they support booting from CF. Haven't had any luck so far though. I am leaning towards no, or at least they don't have a script to shrink the install like IPcop.

 

[swatbat]

Yea it looks good but I'm wanting solid state for this. I'm going to mess with it some and see if how small I can get it and see if I can get it loaded when the parts come in. At very least I may throw it on a spare p4 I have sitting around(hehe 3.5 ghz firewall with a gig of ram).